Re: [microsound] economics of mp3 and microsound (was re:mp3 redux)

[dbuchwald <dagmar.buchwald@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for that thoughtful article.  It tries to define "copyright laws" as a
fourth law against theft, "theft of information".  But I am not sure whether this
is how the argument goes.  I think a lot of people would reduce the fourth law to
the second law, "theft of property," and regard a song or a book as a product from
which to make a living, such as the baker regards his bread.  It all depends
whether you regard it as information (virtually infinite) or as a "product".  I
think that is the bone of contention.

Dagmar

Renick Bell wrote:

> I admire Jan's moral imperative against theft. This kind of ethical backbone
> seems to be in short supply at the moment. I don't mean to justify theft, but
> economics seems largely amoral to me and relatively pointless to resist.
>
> Jan, here's a reasonably well-written piece on the morality of mp3s:
>
> http://www.furinkan.net/display.php?pageid=75
>
> More, for information on the problems with copyright, written by Lawrence
> Lessig, one of the foremost experts:
>
> http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/content/articles/
>
> So, about the economics:
>
> 1. While Albini says most labels screw the artists, he will allow that there
> are indie labels that treat artists well and keep costs low.
>
> 2. Jeff at Ninjatune says most of their artists don't have other jobs and like
> the label.
>
> 3. Labels say that downloading is killing their business.
>
> 4. As access to the internet and broadband increase, downloading will increase.
>
> 5. Absent adopting a different business model (different income sources),
> labels will cease operations.
>
> 6. Artists without other income will have to find other income.
>
> If 1-4 above are correct, then the model for taking income for music must
> change. What is the next step? What is the evolution? How can artists
> materially benefit from their work in the future? Rather than resist the trend,
> how can we harness the trend for financial gain? Must the relationship between
> defeating scarcity (easily duplicated IP) and income be an inverse
> relationship?
>
> The reason I ask about income is to get all the facts on the table. Without
> some evidence (e.g. Albini, others), it's just us tossing back and forth
> completely subjective opinions. Not that I believe we'll get to the bottom of
> this, but having some more data makes the discussion more interesting. Without
> knowing for sure, I think the incomes run the range; there are those who have
> become very wealthy through music (through the support of major label publicity
> and their personal star-power), there are those who have reasonable
> middle-class lives (successful indies, studio techs, small-time producers, and
> others), and there are those who are very poor but doing music anyway (touring
> indies without day jobs). Without being sure, I guess most makers of electronic
> music have other primary sources of income.
>
> According to this survey, many musicians are netting a loss and making less
> money in 2002 than in 2001:
>
> http://home.tiscali.no/hkrabye/musiciansreport/survey3.html
> http://home.tiscali.no/hkrabye/musiciansreport/survey2.html
>
> I'll be the first to pony up details: I'm comfortably middle class, with only a
> very minor contribution being income from musical activity (about 1 percent).
> If there are artists who are making all or the majority of their income from
> (non-dance) electronic music, I'd like to know how. That's very interesting to
> me. Kim said a bit comparing the profit from his indie days to now, and
> Philippe said on the IDM list that consumers support his business and his
> artists are happy. Does this mean you can eat macaroni and cheese every day (we
> already know Kim is at least eating Thai and sushi ;) ), does it mean that you
> can buy new G4s once a year as speeds increase, or does it mean that you can
> buy Jags? What is the level of success, and how has it changed from the past to
> the present and why? Is this a temporary situation that will change (see my
> argument above), or does this music (microsound) exist in a different space
> with different rules?
>
> Sure, this is an old issue. Google scarcity and mp3 and you can find essays
> from before 1999. This was a hot topic in 2000. The trouble is that I haven't
> heard anything new. I wondered if any of you knew of something I hadn't yet
> heard about.
>
> On alternative income sources, I found these old solutions:
>
> http://www.tangrams.com/music/payments.html
>
> Has anyone had any success with Paypal micropayment systems? If you are selling
> a CD and have mp3s of the same material available for download, what is the
> ratio of sales to downloads? Anyone read this information somewhere else?
>
> Renick
>
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